Stauromedusae
Stalked jellyfishes Temporal range:
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Stauromedusae from Ernst Haeckel's 1904 Kunstformen der Natur | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Cnidaria |
Class: | Staurozoa |
Order: | Stauromedusae Haeckel, 1879 |
Suborders | |
Synonyms | |
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Stauromedusae are the stalked jellyfishes. They are the sole living members of the
Members of this class are commonly found in relatively cold waters, close to the shoreline. However, there are a few known species that inhabit tropical and subtropical waters as referenced in the Stauromedusae article by Claudia E. Mills and Yayoi M. Hirano. Sexually mature stauromedusae free-spawn eggs or sperm, which fertilize in the sea and form a creeping, unciliated planula larva. The larvae crawl across the sea floor and find a suitable place, attaching themselves typically to rock or algae, where they eventually develop into a new, attached stauromedusa. Unlike most scyphozoan jellyfish that practice strobilation, or the process of dividing themselves into body segments, which become new individuals, nearly all stauromedusae develop directly into the adult form. Its primary source of food is small organisms, such as copepods, chironomid fly larvae, podocopid ostracods, amphipods, etc. The tendency for the amount of prey consumed increases with the size of the medusae.
Gallery
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Haliclystus sp.
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Depastromorpha africana
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Lipkea spp.
References
- PMID 25165764.
Bibliography
- Introduction to Stauromedusae
- Jellyzone
- Brief classification University of Michigan
- List of all known species of Stauromedusae
- [Zagal, C. J. (2004). Diet of the stauromedusa Haliclystus auricula from southern Chile. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom, 84(2), 337–340.]https://faculty.washington.edu/cemills/Mills&Hirano2007bStauro.pdf